


The Braid

by Knightqueen



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Female Character of Color, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Period-Typical Racism, Personal Experience, Racism, Ratings: PG, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Hatred, blackinfanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 06:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knightqueen/pseuds/Knightqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Braids are key to her identity, they are more than a mere personal preference.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Braid

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** _Assassin's Creed III/Liberation_ , and all things related to the franchise, is property of Ubisoft.

As a child growing up in an environment considered to be unlike her own, Aveline’s outlook on beauty was a skewered creature. Though her mother, placidly reassured her that she was a beautiful girl in her own right, the looks of derision she received from many a white girl her age made her think otherwise. She was, of course, too dark to be pretty, but light enough that she didn't cause major offense in her chosen party, just pity (most of which was directed toward her father, Phillippe). That was hardly a prize of note, however. The other sticking point for them would be her hair, it wasn’t flowing and nor did it shine in the sun like Rapunzel’s or Sleeping Beauty’s.

Aveline’s hair was coarse and thick, often swallowing the moisture she absorbed on a daily basis or drying up when there was none. The hours spent sitting between her mother’s legs on the floor while she sat on the bed, separating and detangling her hair were some of the worst memories of her young lifetime. The days she wished to cut it off, were days Jeanne would "bear her teeth" and try to shake sense into her. 

“Don’t ever let them girls get you to thinking you need to hack your hair off. They’re jealous, you hear me, Aveline?” The abrasiveness of her tone made Aveline weep, but no less envious of her enemies. What was wrong with wanting to be like the other girls, maman? By their standards, hair that did not bounce or was easily manageable was not hair, but a rug. The benefit of a white father did nothing to diminish that fact.

Her mother’s disappearance made the covert insults harder to deal with than others the further she matured into young adulthood. To assuage her evident worries, her father bought her French wigs of various styles, all matching or close to the tone of her own. She rejected them at first, assuming her father believed as the others did; yet, when it came time to be invited to garden party, Aveline did not bother to struggle as her mother did, she put on the curliest wig she could find to compliment her green dress and entered the fray.

They still whispered, but their outright suspicion and hostile was kept in check as Aveline would not give them the chance to isolate her. The newfound freedom her wigs gave her was a refreshing break from her inner turmoil. The nights she removed them from her were quick to remind her of her truer nature, but she ignored it for a large part of her socialite experience, Madeleine de L'Isle unconsciously encouraging her to do so.

Agate, her mentor, cared little for the reasons she chose to keep her hair up in wraps during the earlier days of training; her problem was not his until she failed to perform the tasks related to her ascension into the ranks of the brotherhood. Mingling among the slaves, Aveline unconsciously searched for the shadow of her mother on the weary and weathered faces of the women who looked after their children and the child of others, never knowing when they would disappear. 

Pushing restlessly through the double life of a lady on the outside and assassin in training, Aveline balanced her duties and superficial desires alongside sleepless hours hiding from the thing that gnawed at the back of her mind. On some sordid and hot day, in the guise of a lady, she caught a glimpse of a girl and her mother taking shelter behind a barn as she tried to fix her hair with an injured hand. 

Aveline thought to help her, perhaps gain a new ally in the process. “Hello, do you need help?” The look she gave the fledging assassin told her to stay away, but the girl’s round face illuminated immediately. “Mama’s havin’ trouble with my hair, can you help?” Her fingers, calloused and significantly smaller than her own, gripped the sleeve of her dress. 

“Hush, now, the lady don’t have no time for---” 

“Nonsense, I would be glad to help,” Aveline protested, hoping disarm the tension with a smile. The mother accepted her help, but the withering and heartbroken expression on her face did not go unnoticed as she child was urged to chatter more than she was allotted, spilling secret dreams of having hair like “the masters daughter” someday. 

She stood at the daughter’s side troubled, more by the mother’s expression than anything the little girl might have said --- perhaps both. She stared herself in the mirror that night. Wearing naught but her nightdress, she studied the volume of her hair, the way it would curl on top of itself when released from the braids she tied it in. Her eyes would wander to the wig sitting on the faceless mannequin and she would think of her mother, sitting much in the same fashion the other woman did. 

Pity, was the initial emotion she believed the mother wore. Now, she recognized it as resigned anger. The anger of a woman who could do nothing but watch as some outside culture eroded her daughter’s appreciation for herself and her own beauty.

Aveline could not go on like that. She could not contribute to that kind of self-hatred, though the task of unlearning it would be easier said than done.


End file.
